Scientists hoping to better evaluate and treat kidney cancer with new laboratory models

Evaluating and treating kidney cancer could become less difficult, thanks to a few scientists’ laboratory models at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The laboratory models will help to determine causes of the cancer and learn how to better treat it, a UNC release said. Currently in the U.S., kidney cancer is ranked eighth in cancers diagnosed, and 14,000 of those cases are fatal. Additionally, 65,000 more will be impacted by kidney cancer this year, the National Cancer Institute predicts. The two specific types of kidney cancer patients are diagnosed with are papillary renal cell carcinoma and clear cell renal carcinoma.

“Having faithful genetic models of kidney cancer will enable us to develop a better understanding of the biology behind these cancers,” William Y. Kim, a UNC Lineberger member, said in the release. “We also can use these models to look for new targets and validate them in the preclinical setting more quickly as well as to test possible novel treatments that, if they work well, could be considered for patients with these genomic alterations.”

While the models will help to evaluate the cancer, they also seek to determine the pathways that allow for cancer to reproduce.

“There is still a lot of room for drug development and target validation in other cancer signaling pathways that have gone awry,” Kim said in the release.